


A Taste So Bittersweet

by Magnetism_bind



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Boxing & Fisticuffs, Childhood Memories, Cocaine, Drug Use, Jealousy, Sibling Rivalry, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 04:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2534903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnetism_bind/pseuds/Magnetism_bind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a tumblr prompt -Tommy/Arthur, love, hate, jealousy, cocaine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Taste So Bittersweet

Mid-evening, the bar is filling up nicely. Tommy finishes his whiskey and looks around the busy room . They’re doing all right these days. Across the room Arthur pushes his chair back noisily, both hands curving through his lanky hair as he laughs. Tommy watches his brother then takes the bottle off the shelf again and pours himself another. It’s Saturday. Why not?

“Tommy!”

He looks up as Arthur swaggers over to the bar, leaning in close. Tommy resists the urge to move away out of reach.

“Tommy!” Arthur claps his brother on the back. “How’re you this fine night?” He pinches Tommy’s cheek, chuckling. “My baby brother, everyone. The man of the family.”

Tommy smiles thinly as the men around them laugh. Has Arthur ever truly been his older brother? When they were small, lying in their cots at night, listening as Arthur Senior had cajoled their mother to bed with him, Arthur had kept him between the wall and himself. “Think of something other.” He’d whispered, muffling the sounds.

Tommy had done his best.

That advice had stuck over the years, staying with Tommy through the war. He’d taken it to heart and clung to it. _Think of something other, anything else_ , and that’s what he did. When he came back, he turned those thoughts to the running of the business.

Arthur however had leaned into his own words so now he was one step away from forgetting why he’d said them to begin with. That something other had been lingering too long, winding webs throughout the hidey-holes of his mind. Now Tommy isn't sure Arthur would recognize the truth he was avoiding these days even if he met it on the street in broad daylight.  
  
He rolls the whiskey over his tongue and sets his glass down. Arthur nods his head at the side door and goes. Tommy hesitates, and then goes after him.

On the table Arthur has it all ready. An invitation waiting for him to step forward. Tommy eyes it as his brother whistles a flighty wisp of a tune. A special occasion. That's what it’s for. That's all. He leans in the doorway, watching Arthur. A smooth, crisp line and then it's gone. Arthur inhales, smiling at him. Things fall apart, but sometimes you can keep things pieced together. Patching in the cracks. Making it last as long as it can. Think of something other.

Arthur offers it to him and Tommy thinks, ‘Why not?’

After they have another drink as well. It’s Tommy’s turn to smile then as Arthur arm-wrestles someone and wins. He roars with victory, the men around him joining in.

Then they’re out on the street, and Tommy smiles then too as Arthur slings an arm around his shoulder, pulling him in close.

They stop in to check on the supplies because Tommy doesn’t forget his responsibilities just because he’s having a night off. Arthur slips between the ropes and does a quick shuffle across the ring.

“Whatta you say, Tommy?” Arthur grins at him. "One time for old time’s sake."

Why not?

Tommy smiles and nods. The coke makes his head swim high and clear. He removes his coat and cap, stripping down to his undershirt. Arthur's busy taking his own off, revealing wiry ready muscles. He's always had the upper hand in the ring, even on his worse days. Took after his father like that, in his younger days. Tommy thinks of their da, showing up again like he did after all that time. Like he had a right to. Like he was welcome.

He spits in the straw and turns to his brother. Holding on to that hope is another crack in Arthur's already fragile armor. You can't tie yourself to people so hard and fast like that. It'll only drown you in the end. _Nothing should do that_ , Tommy thinks, _nothing and nobody should have that pull on you_ , and he knows he's lying to himself even as he says it. Arthur pulls at him, bringing him in close, laughing as Tommy swings at him

"You can do better than that." Arthur's dancing away, light on his feet.

In the war they had to be quick, and to know when to slow. Lying on their bellies in the mud, waiting, barely breathing. For once the memories don't make him flinch. He survived the war. He can survive these days too. Tommy comes around and swings again. Arthur dodges, laughing. It starts to sound patronizing. He’s not the older brother anymore, so why play at it?

"Come on, boyo." Arthur chides. "You can do it laddie."

Tommy tightens his fist and swings again. Another miss. Too wide. His hands fail him and he wants to yell.

Arthur cackles and Tommy’s jaw tightens. “Stop your mouth.”

“Ah, come on,” Arthur leans in to pat his cheek and dances backward again when Tommy reaches for him.

They keep sparring. Tommy’s sweating through his shirt. He feels like he’s young again, too small, too slow and Arthur’s towering over him like he’s the older brother again, like it’s all in his hands. Not right. Not how it should be.

Arthur twists around, tapping him soundly on the back as Tommy falls past him. “Come on, Tommy! Come on!” The words are shouted, boisterous, rousing, a call to arms and Tommy winces at that, covering his ears with his hands.

Arthur ducks out a foot and trips him. Tommy sprawls in the straw. Arthur sways over him in the dim light. He’s asking something. If Tommy’s all right. Tommy’s not, but he doesn’t feel like answering either. He wants to be alone, to lie in the silence and let the flickering sounds dwindle away until he knows for sure that he’s alone. And then he wants to open his eyes and find himself not alone after all.

He wants the impossible.

 *  *  *

“Tommy. Tommy, Tommy, Tommy-o.” Arthur croons his younger brother’s name. He half crouches by Tommy’s side, watching as Tommy gazes at the roof.

His baby brother – shoulda been the head of the family, but he’s not. Or he is these days, in all but name. Arthur had never wanted to accept that. Not in the beginning, not now. If he were an honest man, he’d admit that he was grateful. Is it weakness to relinquish the responsibility? To surrender that which you’re ill-suited for? Arthur loathes himself and hates Tommy for it too. The way he strides into things and takes over. Like he’s a big man now.

Big man. Arthur remembers the night his little brother was born. The rain had bucketed down, rattling on the roof. Their ma had screamed fit to beat the band, and their da had fucked off to god knows where, muttering about how he couldn’t get any decent peace in his own home.

“Weak as water.” Aunt Pol had called after him. One of the kinder names Arthur had heard his father called.

She’d helped deliver the baby that night while Arthur sat in the corner and pretended he wasn’t listening. Afterwards Polly had brought him over to the bed. At least his mother looked better now, tired and sweat drying on her forehead, but better.

“This here’s your brother.” Pol smiled at him as he bent over the baby.

He hadn’t looked like much. Tiny bundle in a blanket, blue-eyed devil blinking up at Arthur like he already knew more than was good for him. Arthur hadn’t known then how much things would change. Not straight off. It took time. But Tommy’s birth had been the beginning of the end.

There had been other babies born in the Shelby home, but it was Tommy’s birth that Arthur remembered. After that night he followed his father’s example and left the house for quieter locations whenever his mother’s time came.

Over the years Tommy had grown up at his heels, dogging his brother’s footsteps, and then darting forward, trying to lead the way instead. And now here they are. 

“Tommy. Tommy.” He slaps his brother’s cheek lightly. “Come on, Tommy.”

Tommy doesn’t stir.

Arthur shakes his head and reaches for the bucket of water in the corner of the ring. He dumps it over Tommy’s head. “Get up, you lazy bastard.” The fire inside him is roaring hot and he wants his brother up for another round, a third, to drink and continue the rabble-rousing, letting it burn up inside him.

Tommy comes to, spluttering. “The fuck you do that for?”

“Get up.” Arthur nudges at his side with his boot.

Tommy brushes his wet hair away from his face, glaring at him.

Arthur leans back against the ropes, watching him. “You know what, Tommy? You think you’re so fucking clever.”

“Took you long enough to come up with that.” Tommy exhales, pushing himself up. Without his coat he looks younger again, more like the boy that Arthur remembers. He reaches out a hand and tugs Tommy closer.

“Come on, Tommy. The night is young.” _And so are you. So young. So fucking young. Even after the war. Still my little brother._

Tommy pulls away, but Arthur holds fast to his arm, unwilling to let him go. “You want to run this family, eh?”

“I do run this family.” Tommy pulls free. “Arthur if you-”

Arthur grabs his neck, pulling him in close again. “Tommy, you think you know what’s best for us. You don’t know shite.”

“Arthur, listen.” Tommy meets his gaze. “I _am_ doing what’s best for this family.”

He’s telling the truth. No. He’s lying his balls off, just wants to run the family and keep Arthur under his thumb. Arthur clasps his face in both his hands, looking at his baby brother until he can't look at him any longer.

“Tommy. You,” He shakes his head. He can’t explain the shame he’s felt at letting Tommy take the reins, nor the way he’d wanted to let it go. Let it all go, let it fly away until he can’t even feel the weight of it any more.

Arthur shakes his head and pushes at Tommy until he stumbles backward.

“Arthur.”

“Get out. Leave me alone.”

Tommy hesitates, but then he reaches for his coat, dragging it back on his shoulders. He goes, leaving Arthur alone.

“That’s right.” Arthur mumbles, slumping back against the wall as he slides down. “You do what I’m telling you. It’s for your own good.”

He closes his eyes, swallowing hoarsely until the silence sweeps in. Then he pushes himself back up and goes back to the bar. The night’s young, and he’s not dead yet.


End file.
